Wilson, William Julius (1935-)

Early Life

William Julius Wilson was born in 1935, in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, a small, rural, nonfarm community roughly fifty miles east of Pittsburgh. He grew up in the working-class community of Bairdstown, whose social structure was largely made up of persons in operatives, crafts, and laboring lines of work. Economic and social circumstances more than race appear to have influenced his perceptions, consciousness, and outlook on life. Although his family was quite poor and he often went hungry, he did not feel deprived and trapped in poverty, nor did he experience crowded conditions, crimes, drugs, or a sense of being imprisoned. A close and supportive extended family nurtured in him high levels of educational expectations, aspirations, and achievements. Within his extended family, an aunt helped finance his college education.

As an undergraduate, Wilson attended Wilberforce University with a scholarship from his church and additional financial support from his aunt. Wilberforce has the distinction of being the oldest historically Black institution of higher education. Wilson initially considered majoring in business administration; however, he changed his mind after taking his first sociology courses. Professor Maxwell Brooks captured his interest with courses in social problems and race and offered him a teaching assistantship. Working under Brooks, he developed the holistic perspective that would influence his sociological imagination and analyses of social problems.

After graduating from Wilberforce and serving 2 years in the U.S. Army, Wilson completed a master's degree in sociology at Bowling Green State University. His master's thesis, “A Study of Attitudes of the Protestant Pastors of Church and Sect Type Religious Organization in the City of Toledo Toward Militarism and Pacifism,” focused on liberal and fundamentalist religiosity and the relationships between political attitudes and human action.

Wilson's sociological interests at Washington State University, Pullman, were principally focused on theory construction, the logic of sociological inquiry, and the philosophy of the social sciences. Richard Ogles, a former professor in sociology, introduced him to the writings of the philosophers of science Ernest Nagel, Karl Hempel, and Gustav Bergman. Wilson's earliest sociological publications address the scientific status of sociological theory with respect to structures of explanation, significance of concepts, and the nature of evidence. His PhD dissertation was titled “Preference Evaluation and Norms: An Empirical Exploration in Measurement.”

Wilson's first academic appointment was as an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he received tenure and promotion to associate professor without apparent difficulty. During the Amherst years, he was recognized as a master teacher and won the Distinguished Teacher Award. Earlier theoretical interests in the philosophy of science and formal theory were refocused on racial and ethnic relations.

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